Your Eyes
by Gevaudan
Summary: Despite all the adrenaline-pumping, heart-stopping moments, it's your eyes that scare me more than anything else.


Disclaimer: All characters belong to the appropriate parties (sadly not me, though that's another rant for a longer day). I make no money from this endeavour.

Rating: G

Author's note: I'm back – with a rather angsty fluff free piece, a bit of a surprise considering my summer has been filled with weddings and romance. But as usual, I had to get it down before I forgot it. All reviews welcome!

Your Eyes

I've seen a lot of things that scare me in my life; both alien and human. I've faced death more times than I really want to consider too closely and I still wake up at night feeling its icy fingers around my throat. I've watched strangers and friends alike die both needlessly and terrified and saving the world with more grace and dignity than I ever thought possible. Despite all this, all the adrenaline-pumping, heart-stopping moments, it's your eyes that scare me more than anything else.

You'd laugh, if were you ever to hear me admit that. It's true, that I have wasted not inconsiderable amounts of my evenings watching them, admiring their rich blue tones and the power you wield with a single look. Sometimes I think you're oblivious to your skill, other days I think you are fully aware and ruthlessly use it to your own advantage; either way I stand in awe of your mastery.

I am, more often than not, the willing victim of your eyes, the through the lashes, "Come to bed" eyes in particular. Do you realise that I'd do anything you asked of me, if you just looked at me in _that_ way? They are always soft tones of pastel then, framed by starkly jet black eyelashes, a picture of innocence, until you shoot me one of _those_ looks that sends my blood heading south and leaves me wanting to drag you into the nearest private place and to hell with the rest of the team. But, despite what you may think of me, that isn't the look that scares me.

Then of course, there's that frustrated look, the one calculated to express how you feel better than a thousand word diatribe ever could. That look has sent aliens scrambling for cover, made even the most hardened of UNIT officers reconsider their plans. If you add in the patented eye-roll even Owen's being known to stop in his tracks. But, while I may wish that I saw less of that look, particularly when it's directed at me, that isn't the one that sends fear through my veins.

Sometimes your eyes burn, fiery and passionate, determined to see through whatever challenge is before you, lighting up with pride, and a dancing glee, when you see a solution that has so far been beyond our grasp. They sparkle with a joy that some would be surprised by, reflecting your wonderment in brilliant kaleidoscopes of cerulean, in a way that brings a lump to my throat that I have to work hard to hide. Because this look, is why your eyes frighten me more than any of the aliens, or bogeymen or monsters under the bed.

This look, its sheer joy in the face of insurmountable darkness, is the reason I put you into harm's way, send you out on Torchwood's most dangerous missions although I want nothing more than to keep you safe within the impregnable walls of the archives. Every time you leave the Hub, meticulously checking your weapon as you go, my heart contracts with the fear that the next look I see in your eyes will be the grey glaze of death. And I will have to live for eternity with the guilt of sending you out to meet it.

I don't want to do it. I hate myself, every time I see a Weevil get too close, every time you face down armed men, every time your blood is spilt, and yet I cannot stop. Because I know, that were I to stop you, I would see that grey, blank look of death in your eyes as you slowly succumb to boredom, and as much as I wish to keep to safe, I can't bear to see resentment darken eyes that were once filled with light.

Either way, I will be the architect of your death, and the grief will haunt me for longer that you can begin to imagine. But before you go, I want your eyes to shine and sparkle and beg me to take you to bed, rather than to condemn me. And I hate myself for it.


End file.
